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2G roast my home made coilovers

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zedicus

10+ Year Contributor
469
71
Aug 4, 2011
Garden city, Kansas
Seriously, was this worth the effort or not really?

AGX with adjustable preload and compression. Pillowball top mount, stock height (not meant to be height adjustable using Hyperco spring with a 700lbs rating. (kind of high for the AGX i know) for the front of a talon TSI 2g (yes FWD)

I have a similar plan for the rear minus the pillow ball mount, i don't think the pillow ball helps as much on the rear.

The question is though, is this going to be any better than a Megan or Tein coilover or did i waste my time polishing a turd?

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I think they turned out good.

But, as you said, I think you polished a turd here. I've had horrible luck with KYB AGX struts, they just don't last. I doubt these will be better than almost any coilover out there. If you paired your setup with a better damper and a softer spring, you'd have a better end result. But, you still won't gain the ability to adjust ride height with these like you would with a coilover.
 
really i am planning on moving to KW coilovers but the car is on stock 20+ year old everything and most of the rubber is just totally gone. its like riding around in a boat. and with the 14b and even a slightly heavy foot it is downright scary. so yes this is probably expecting too much of the AGX, personally i use KYB on a lot of platforms and i am expecting it to at least work out good enough for the next year or 2. the rear is going to be on tokico illumina, i do not normally mix, but its what was on sale at the time. this is EXTREME budget set up.

rear will be tokico illumina, 300lbs spring, same aluminum perch for preload adjustment. however no pillow ball on the rear.
 
just reporting back in after having some use on this set up. i must say it is actually pretty good. but with the lower cost good quality stuff out there i would not actually recommend building this set up unless you had a reason too. it is a GOOD set up. but unless you have the time to scour ebay for a couple months it is not going to save you much over a set of FEALs. And actually right now BC is having a sale and could be had for about the same as this set up costs. not that BC is a high quality option, for the cost it is at least in the ballpark.

Anyways back to my build out. with the 700lbs front springs and 300lbs rear springs i was expecting a harsh crap ride with good cornering but a tendancy to snap and break free at any time. however i did not get any of that. the ride (and we have everything from brick roads and dirt, to fresh concrete roads here) is actually good. it is very stiff, but not bouncy or anything weird. it does feel slightly under damped but not so much that it is noticeable very often. however with the STIFF springs i put on one of the most noticeable issuers is chassis flex. i am going to have to put strut bars front and back to help this. i did manage to push the car enough to get it to squeal a little in a corner and as it is the car has very slight understeer. and for those of you actually looking at coilovers, the most popular reason is height adjustment, and there is none of that here. it would be possible to use different length springs to change height somewhat, it would change travel a lot and would not be recommended.

for what i spent i am happy with this. however my recommendation is to simply get a turn key solution and be done with it. this is loosely based off the ground control and Koni mod (with front top hats) that a lot of people do, but right now especially if using Koni, this would end up more expensive than a brand new set of Feals.

if you do end up building something like this, i would change to 500lbs fronts and 250lbs rear springs. that technically is not as stiff as the car needs to be a road course car. but with the chassis flex and limitations of prebuilt dampers, thats about the upper limit.
 
you couldnt pay me to put a crap lowering spring kit on one of these. even for 'street use only' the pillow ball bearings on the front make enough difference that if i was doing m ore than freshening up stock stuff, i would make sure it had the pillow balls on the front.
 
Well firstly adjustable preload is not really needed until you have coilovers and corner weighting the car, you have the adjustable sleevs ontop of the wonky lower spring perch which looks bad engineering on your part (please show more to prove this wong) and as they all say 700pbs springs on hem shocks! Your crazy, the damper is not valvd for such a spring at so where the spring is doing a job its not doing it well for the valveing preset, while it feels nice now, git it a few months and if they dont blow by then they will certainly cause handling issues when pushed!

What you have done is taken a good idea but made it worse with the shock! Cheap lowering springs are not always ideal no but they are better in respective they offer better rates and are consistant! Put yurs on a poltting system and it will be all over the place,
 
the threaded sleeve actually presses onto the shock body, it does not rest on the spring perch plate. it can not be seen in the pic because i have the stop adjusted all the way down.

i have actually been on them for a few months now. haven't blown yet. they feel very predictable. as i said body flex is actually noticeable now.

actually the hyperco springs i used are way better than anything you will get in a chinese kit. hyperco is up there with swift for quality.
 
this is one of those threads where the OP goes slightly against the grain and has proof that it actually works fairly well and still gets bashed. someone recommended a lowering kit when i actually said i wanted stock height.

i admit that the springs are too stiff and give a recommendation. and the only brand better than hyperco is swift and that is debatable. trying to show an alternative way of making a budget coilover for those that want SUSPENSION and not to drop the car on the ground and have it handle like crap.
 
this is one of those threads where the OP goes slightly against the grain and has proof that it actually works fairly well and still gets bashed.

Is it bashing when you are literally asking for it? ;)

roast my home made coilovers
seriously, was this worth the effort or not really?
is this going to be any better than a megan or tein coil over or did i waste my time polishing a turd?


Also, what is your price breakdown? How much would you spend to do this setup (brand new) vs a proper FEAL 441, Fortune Auto, or other reputable brand cost?
 
touche.

prices are as follows
front top RTM top hats 250$
4 press on threaded sleeves 50$
kyb agx front pair 200$
tokico rears pair 300$
koni lo-pro perch pair 60$
koni reg perch pair 40$
ebayed used hyperco springs in weights i thought i wanted, 100$ full set (new they can be found for 79-300$ a spring)

and these will not be rebuildable but all the parts would swap easily so they could have new shocks inserted when worn out, spring rates easily changed to other weights. heck could even have the koni yellows put in when the kyb and tokico stuff goes out. but the feals have those same features along with being rebuildable. lower weight used hyperco springs and just plain kyb agx all around would save around another 100$. this set up can be made height adjustable in a few ways also but i had no interest so didn't bother. building this for a 1g or a 2g is possible.

if i were to go all out with Koni yellows, height adjustment and top hats all around, i would have as good as a package as the feals, but it would actually cost MORE than just buying the feals to begin with.

it is possible to piece this stuff together over time while the feals require 1400$ in one shot.

being on my set up, and people that i have seen with ultra cheap coilovers or lowering kits, i think the assembled set i have is a lot better from a handling perspective. skid pad is improved, stability is solid. car corners predictably ever time. some of their stuff is painful to be in. teeth rattling or feels no better than the worn out stock stuff. but they wanted 2 to 3 inches lower no matter how the ride was.

LIKE I SAID THOUGH. DO NOT DO THIS. BUY THE FEALS.

if you want your car LOWER and do not care about anything else, i guess what i am trying to say, is sell your DSM and buy a civic.
 
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Just an FYI, you can get the Feals $1200 shipped to your door with the constant MAP 10% off sales. Also, I have my Feals at 5/30 hardness and the car is not harsh at all. This is with complete polyurethane bushings everywhere if not solid metal. I thought the ride would be mush harsher but pleasantly surprised. hey, at least you tried to do something cool.
 
To do them full out (and properly, Konis, top hats with sphericals, etc) in all corners you'd basically have a $1600 setup that cannot be independently pre-load and height adjusted . I can see it as an alternative to those who want to piece their components over time instead of just forking that amount for FEAL's or Fortune Auto's, KW's, etc. but can't see the benefits of buying a shock that is not custom valved for a specific springrate.

Just curios, why didn't you want a lower ride height? Is there a specific reason vs just keeping ground clearance?
 
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Wow thats alot of money wasted, while all this cost alot the benifits are not to be had from such a costly setup, also when you said cannot afford it all at once, well thats why its called saving!!! This to me seems like a utter waste of money and although its good you did this from scratch but other then doing the job its was not worth it in the long run
 
I think you're on the right track; most of these Taiwan-made coilovers are lackluster to say the least. A marginally better product for a marginal price. I made a thread awhile back about K-sports showing they only have 2 inches of usable travel. Details like that make you wonder if they simply recycle the body footprint and use it across multiple platforms with no attention to the specific needs of the chassis. Still, better than stock unit provided the rods don't bend or lose a seal. If you're truly concerned about the handling dynamics of the car, you'd skip all this off the shelf BS and go custom like black95tsiawd said. There's nothing truly exceptional out there in most cases unless you're willing to dig deep in your pockets :)

I ran AGX's back in the day, believe those are the 4-position comp-rebound position dampers...decent units. So long as your collar sleeve is flush, plumb and secure to the damper body, I'd say it's a good homemade chop-up. That spring is going to want to wander a bit without an upper register to sit in with that sleeve on the shock. I've seen it where the spring chews on the sleeve in a similar setup on someone else's similar idea. There are DIY pieces out there where you can better position your mounts, but good budget idea overall. No reason to hate on it
 
If I understand your set up correctly, the top mount is ~3/8 plate steel and the spring top is over 1" lower than the mounting surface, which eliminates wheel travel.

I have seen many fab parts over the years. Here are some suggestions for chassis part design:
1. light weight parts add-up (or subtract) when there are thousands of parts on a car; make every part just a little bit lighter.
2. Structural stiffness is important for chassis components, but the 3/8" plate might be overboard.
3. Wheel travel allows energy dissipation over potholes. Maximise your wheel travel to prevent breaking wheels.
 
i did not want a lower ride height due to living in a farm community. there are SUV's with bashed front bumpers due to the roads and debris out here.

yeah these started out as what i had hoped to be cheaper or about the same cost wise, but spanned out over a time line. really though i did not cut deeply into wheel travel. it looks short but most of the components sit at thread height. i bet i did not loose 1 full inch of travel compared to stock.

the tophats are an RTM product. they are a very nice but expensive piece. i thought about having them machined locally but really it would have been more expensive to do that even figuring in shipping.

i would still give this set up a lot better rating than the garbage coil over or lowering spring set ups. and it does have some ability to customize spring set ups if you were doing autocross or something. BUT had i just tucked the money in a sock drawer over the 6-8 months i could have bought a set of feals.

with the availability of the feals, there is no practical reason to go with even the Koni ground control set up or a full on Koni build. as you will be no cheaper and have a lesser product. it is hard to navigate the coilovers on the market. a bunch change their name and you end up buying the same crap now anodized in a new shade of brown.

there are some reasons you might want to build something like this. it is possible from retail, and it turns into an acceptable product at an acceptable price and you can adjust your options. at one time the DSM had exactly ZERO midrange options, it was garbage, or 3000$ or more for KW or custom fitting ohlins. so with that in mind these end up being a valid, if somewhat impractical midrange option.
 
I rebuilt one of my Tien rear shock a few years ago ($230) and was I was facing rebuilding the other side this year (it just started making noise). So I send the shock to Tien, hoping I caught it fail earlier and damage will not be as bad. Their quote this time was $290!!! Mind you, you can buy a new shock for $305!!! Why would anyone rebuild one for $290? Pretty stupid businesses model, if you ask me...

I decided to buy two Koni yellow shocks ($250) and two Koni coilover collars and perchs for $80 and used the rest of Tien parts to complete the system. It worked out perfectly! Other than the fact that standard Tien springs are a bit too long for my liking, so I might pick up some shorter springs in the figure.
 
prices are as follows
front top RTM top hats 250$
4 press on threaded sleeves 50$
kyb agx front pair 200$
tokico rears pair 300$

koni lo-pro perch pair 60$
koni reg perch pair 40$
ebayed used hyperco springs in weights i thought i wanted, 100$ full set (new they can be found for 79-300$ a spring)

www.konimarket.com has a set of Koni yellow dampers for $584/shipped! $84 is not much to pay for high quality dampers!
 
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